
Conspiracy or Single-gunman? 
Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator of 
Germany during World War II, once said, The 
bigger the lie, the more people will believe 
it.
Although this may sound absurd, we can 
see many examples of this in the world's 
history. 
One example would have to be the John 
Fitzgerald Kennedy assassination. For over 
thirty years the people of the United States 
were led to believe that a single gunman had 
shot and killed Kennedy in Dallas on 
November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m... 
However, in this paper, I will dispute the 
ancient analization of the facts that show a 
single gunman was involved, and try to show 
that a conspiracy must have taken place. 
According to the old facts regarding the 
case of the JFK assassination, Kennedy was 
killed by a single gunman. On November 
22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST (Central 
Standard Time), Kennedy was riding in an 
open limousine through Dallas, Texas. At this 
time, Kennedy was shot in the head and neck 
by a sniper. He was then taken to Parkland 
Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced 
dead. Later, police arrested Lee Harvey 
Oswald, a former U.S. Marine, at a nearby 
theater. By the next morning, Oswald was 
booked for the murder of President John F. 
Kennedy. Two days later, Oswald was killed 
by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, 
while he was being moved from the city to 
the county jail. 
At a glance, the above story sounds as 
if this should be an open-and-shut case. 
After all, according to the facts above, 
Oswald must have killed Kennedy. However, you 
must take a deeper look into this case. 
Many people who witnessed the murder of John 
F. Kennedy dispute the facts above, saying 
that they heard shots from places besides 
the book depository, and other things that 
may contradict what is stated above. One of 
these witnesses, Abraham Zapruder, captured 
the entire assassination on his Bell and 
Howell video camera. This movie, cleverly 
called the Zapruder Film, is the single best 
piece of visual evidence in this case. In 
order to more clearly understand the Zapruder 
Film, it is necessary to break it down into 
frames. The particular Bell and Howell 
movie camera that Zapruder was using ran at 
about twenty frames per second. 
When using this frame system, you must 
remember that all shots were actually fired 
several frames before the number that is 
assigned to them. For example, the fatal 
heart wound, called Z313, was probably fired 
at Z310, since it took 2-3 frames at about 
twenty frames per second for the bullet to 
reach the victim. Also, you must remember 
that sound travels very quickly at an impossible 
speed. When keeping this in mind, it is 
expected that witnesses heard the shot at 
some point after the bullet passed. The 
following shows a break down of the frames 
of the Zapruder film: 
The Presidential limousine first comes into 
view at frame 133 (the starting point of 
this timeline.) The first shot at (or just 
before) Z187 would have passed through both 
Governor Connally and the President. The 
second shot, which passed above the limousine 
at Z284, missed the President and hit the 
curb near witness James Tague. This caused 
his minor wound. At Z313, the fatal shot 
occurs, which blew out major portions of 
the Presidents brain and skull. - A fourth 
shot occurred at Z323 (slightly 1/2 second 
after the fatal wound at Z313). Due to the 
proximity of this report to the one at 
Z313, as well as it's more distant origin, 
most witnesses were unable to hear this 
shot. Therefore, the above is when the 
bullets hit either Kennedy or Connally, or 
passed through the frames of the Zapruder 
film. Of the one-hundred seventy-eight 
witnesses at Dealey Plaza, one-hundred thirty-
two said that they hear exactly three shots. 
If Oswald was a single gunman, it would 
have taken him at least 2. 3 seconds to 
reload his Mannlicher Carcano rifle. However, 
the general consensus of the witnesses is 
that they heard a single shot, followed by 
silence, with the second and third shots 
bunched together. For example, Lee Bowers, 
one of the witnesses, testified, I heard 
three shots, one, then a slight pause, then 
two very close together. Also, Warren W. 
Taylor, a Secret Service agent, said, As a 
matter of course, I opened the door and 
prepared to get out of the car. In the 
instant that my left foot touched the 
ground, I heard two more bangs and realized 
that they must be gun shots. Lastly, when 
Miss Willis, a witness, was asked if she 
heard any shots, she testified, Yes; I 
heard one. Then there was a little bit of 
time, and then there were two real fast 
bullets together. When the first one hit, 
well, the President turned from waving to 
the people, and he grabbed his throat, and 
he kind of slumped forward, and then I 
couldn't tell where the second shot went. 
Thus, it would have been impossible for one 
gunman to fire a shot with the Mannlicher 
Carcano rifle, reload, fire again, and 
fire again in a very short amount of time 
in order to make the shots sound close 
together. Also, when the fatal shot hit 
Kennedy, his head went back and to the 
left, implying that the bullet came from the 
front and right, not from the back. 
To understand why, you must understand 
the mechanism of the bullet and the angles 
involved. The bullet, if fired from the 
Texas School Book Depository, should have hit 
Kennedy at a 21 degree angle, and, in fact, 
it did. Also, President Kennedy was sitting 
nearly six inches above the level of 
Connally's seat. Thus, when the bullet left 
the President, it hit Connally, who was 
sitting in the front of the vehicle in the 
passenger seat. When the bullet hit Connally, 
the hole in his back was wider than it was 
high, or more than twice as wide as tall. 
This means that the bullet was partially 
turned sideways when it entered Connally's 
back. Thus, the bullet must have hit 
something before it hit Connally. Also, the 
bottom of the bullet that was found was 
broken open and was leaking out tiny 
particles of lead. X-rays taken at Parkland 
showed precisely that type of particle found 
in the Governor's wrist and thigh wounds. 
However, even if the single bullet theory 
is true, it in no way lessens the fact 
that there were multiple gunmen, and there 
was a conspiracy. (The magic bullet is 
thought to be bullet one on the Zapruder 
film.) 
Lastly, one has to consider what the 
biggest motives would be to kill the 
president, or in that case, anybody. One 
motive has to deal with President Kennedy 
trying to get out of Vietnam. This war was 
the biggest business in America at the time. 
It brought in over eighty billion dollars a 
year. Thus, since the President was trying 
to get out of the war, he would have been 
costing business men a lot of money. Also, 
vice-president Johnson would have profited a 
lot because he was the next to become 
president. Therefore, people, including the 
vice-president, had motives to kill the 
President. 
As you can see, the killing of John F. 
Kennedy was a conspiracy. There is no way a 
single gunman could have fired all the 
bullets that hit Kennedy and Connnally in 
that short period of time. Also, since 
Kennedy's head went back and to the left, 
the bullet must have been fired from the 
front and right of Kennedy. This shows that 
there was another gunman, which makes this a 
conspiracy. Someday, it would be nice if the 
truth is revealed about who fired the 
bullets, and how many gunmen there actually 
were. Until that day, we'll never know. 
<br><br>
Words: 1306
